Every lawyer wants to improve their search engine optimization, and it seems as if there are plenty of companies doing SEO for lawyers. They promise the moon and stars, and lawyers – being gullible marks – fall for it left and right.
Most of us have no idea about SEO. All we know is we want to rank well on the search engines. There’s a sales rep who swears he’ll get me to #1 on Google for $500 a month, I’m busy and he sounds convincing.
I’m in. Chances are good that you are, too.
Come on, think about it. If someone could get you to #1 for $500 a month, don’t you think everyone would be doing it? And if they did, which one would be #1?
One of the things that SEO companies do (or tell you to do on your own) is to do link exchanges with other site. You put a link on your site to me, and I put one on my site to you. Google sees those links and boosts us in the rankings overnight. Kismet, joy and happiness abound!
Horse hockey (as Colonel Sherman T. Potter would say).
Any SEO pro knows that inbound links from other highly-regarded sites are what bring up your own search engine standing. Assuming it’s a pure link it will pass along authority and relevance to your site, making your site rise in the SERP.
But here’s the thing: a link to your site on someone else’s sidebar or in their footer means very little to Google because it is out of context.
See, not all links are created equal. In fact, this video shows that links that are in context (in other words, in the text of the site rather than in the sidebar or footer) pass along more authority and relevance than those out of context.
So the next time someone tries to sell you SEO services, casually ask how they feel about link swaps for your sidebars. If they think it’s a good idea, run the other way.
Watch this video to learn more.
Image Credit: justmakeit
Anchor text links are they way forward so people should be exchanging article posts where someone could write a brief post about another with anchor text link back to the other persons website. That would be the best form of link swap to try boost SERP I feel.
Anchor text links are they way forward so people should be exchanging article posts where someone could write a brief post about another with anchor text link back to the other persons website. That would be the best form of link swap to try boost SERP I feel.
By the way I love your blog and will be following your tweets shortly.
Also would like to point out a miss type in my comment. I meant to say "after approximately 6 months of ongoing work on a site" rather than just "months"